Sailor Pyxis fell from the dreamworld of Tartaros with a burst of flames, and fell into a deeper coma in the real world of Destiny City with a startled gasp. There were no visitors in his room to hear the little noise, and the boy didn't stir - just continued the rhythmic breathing that fell perfectly out of place with the beep-beep-beep of the machines. He showed no signs of waking, and when the kind nurse stopped by to check up on him again, to stroke his hair and wish he'd wake up so she could meet the adorable child, she would notice nothing out of the ordinary (and it was sad, wasn't it, that the poor thing's "ordinary" was now a mysterious comatose state).

But he did dream. While he was no longer stuck in a desert with companions who varied from helpful to frustrated with him, he felt as if he were still stuck in some hellish plane of existence.

He wasn't sure how he'd ended up here after he died, but he was no longer Sailor Pyxis. He was simply Pasha, covered in rainbows and cute smiling faces and hearts and star charms, powerless and tiny and nothing without his friends. He thought that he remembered dying, but couldn't figure out why. He thought that he remembered how badly it hurt and how badly he wanted to live, but it was all so vague and impossible that they couldn't have been real feelings. Other details were entirely nonexistent to him, remaining solely in the world of Tartaros. They bled through subtly, in ways that felt sickeningly familiar but he couldn't place how. His freckles still danced around on his arms while he wasn't looking - instead of directing him, they spelled words like "FAILURE" and "IDIOT" and he swore, once, they made an angry face at him. He didn't know when his freckles had obtained this ability, but he hated it and he wanted it to go away (if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all). The fire that had devoured him seem to have devoured his entire world, if the crunches beneath his feet were any indication.

In this dream he was in his home, but his home had been entirely consumed by fire. Everything was ash, charred past recognition, and he honestly wasn't sure how he was able to touch many of the things he did without them falling apart. He didn't know how the roof didn't cave in on him.

More startling than his home was the fact that he had no idea where his parents were. He couldn't find them, he couldn't find Trinket, and...he couldn't find Abel. They'd either left without a trace or the fire had consumed anything and everything. Had he looked outside, he might have noticed that the entirety of the town he called home was the same way - blackened, skeletal, quiet. Plumes of smoke rose up in the distance, some so far away that he would have questioned if they were real or not. There were no people. The world as he knew it was gone, just like those that he loved dearly, who had once inhabited the home he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Pasha sat in the soot and cried. He hated feeling alone. When left alone he felt like he might as well be nobody at all, because his friends were what made him so happy. He loved interacting and smiling and playing and ice cream and stargazing and yarn-playing and swimming and really, he even loved patrolling when it meant being with someone he cared about.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to stop crying, begging for the nightmare life to be over. Now he'd lost his family, and his kitty cat, and his Abel cat. He'd lost his sense of what was right in the world. He'd lost so many hours of sleep from tossing and turning and waiting up for 11:11 to wish that it would all be easier.

But it never was easier.

Next time he'd just wish to wake up (if wishes were even possible in a world that was over). And maybe he would.